Journal Entry 1 by Cassiopaeia from Cardiff, Wales United Kingdom on Saturday, September 10, 2011

Description from Amazon
After a wild, drunken party, Paul Pennyfeather is forced to leave Oxford and begin a new life out in the wide world. His experiences take him from a boys' private school in Wales, where he meets some rather strange people, to a life of luxury in a grand country house and the Ritz Hotel, and then to seven years' hard labour in prison. Where will it all end? The black humour of this story about English society in the 1920s is as fresh today as it was when the novel was first written.  

Journal Entry 2 by Cassiopaeia at Cardiff, Wales United Kingdom on Sunday, January 01, 2012

I've tried Wodehouse in the past but just couldn't develop any liking for him, but Waugh in Decline and Fall is wonderful. The decline starts with the antics of the Bollinger Club (read Bullingdon, membership of which now causes great embarrassment to the present British Prime Minister). It then goes from bad to worse and while very, very funny is also deeply biting and skeptical of society at the time. Indeed it is still very applicable to many of today's ills. A very entertaining read but with a witty satirical undercurrent. Reminds me to some extent of Tom Sharp but with far more subtlety and finesse.